Katherine Parkinson has praised Rivals for what she called its radical view of sex from a woman’s perspective, after the first three episodes of the show’s second series landed on the streaming platform on Friday. Speaking at a preview screening in Bristol, Parkinson said there are not enough examples on television of a woman’s view of sex, and said the series feels brave because it tells truths she has not often seen on screen.
Parkinson, who plays romance author Lizzie Vereker, also appeared in a sex scene with Danny Dyer in the final episode of the first season. Her comments came as the Bristol audience was asked to raise a glass in memory of Jilly Cooper before the screening of the first episode, following the author’s death in October after a fatal head injury in a fall at her Gloucestershire home.
The series is based on Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles and follows the high-stakes world of British television against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside in the fictional county of Rutshire. It has become known for its frequent, racy sex scenes, but Parkinson said the point was not provocation for its own sake. She said Cooper wrote brilliantly from the female perspective about sex, and that television still has too few examples of that point of view.
The second series was filmed at Bottle Yard Studios in Bristol, with many of the locations used in the show sitting within a 30-mile radius around the city. Filming began in May 2025, underscoring how much of Rivals is rooted in the West Country rather than London, even as the story travels through the world of power, ambition and private appetites that made the series a breakout hit.
The Bristol screening also doubled as a showcase for the region itself. Helen Godwin said the West Country is proud to be the real-life Rutshire, somewhere seen by people all around the world and something which is inspiring more visitors to come to, and fall in love with, our region. She added that Rivals being made here has directly and indirectly helped add millions of pounds to the country’s fastest-growing regional economy.
That leaves the show with a clear inheritance from Cooper and a clear task of its own: to keep the scandal and spectacle that made Rivals a hit, while keeping faith with the female gaze she brought to the page. For viewers, the opening batch of episodes suggests the series is still leaning into both, and still treating Bristol and the surrounding countryside as more than a backdrop.
